A grand jury was selected this morning in Northampton County, the first in a decade to investigate unsolved homicides. There are 23 grand jurors and seven alternates with testimony expected to begin this morning in the Holly Branagan case. Branagan, a Freedom High School senior, was found March 29, 1979, on the kitchen floor of her Pine Top Trail home in Bethlehem. A broken knife was embedded in her back and police said she had been stabbed more than a dozen times. A total of 28 unsolved homicides have been slated for the grand jury to consider, but District Attorney John Morganelli has said the top priority will be Branagan's killing.

A contractor and an inspector have been charged with the theft of $3.6 million from the state Department of Transportation in an ongoing investigation of the agency's district covering the five counties in southeastern Pennsylvania, Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane announced Thursday. Kane said her office began its investigation of PennDOT District 6 in March 2013, and that the charges announced Thursday were recommended by a grand jury. In a statement, her office said Thanh Nguyen, 62, who has received $26 million in contracts for PennDOT maintenance since 2009, stole the funds with the assistance of Robert Slamon, a PennDOT consultant.

It's not quite an indictment, but still! A grand jury has taken the unusual step of issuing a scathing report on a former Bethlehem Steel executive's performance heading the would-be Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem... A lot of local layoffs today: Kindred Hospital, a long-term acute care hospital under the Easton Hospital umbrella, will begin closing in March and permanently shut down... And Chipmaker LSI won't say how many workers have gotten pink slips; though, the number is believed to be in the dozens, including many workers for whom today is to be their last day...

Bucks County Human Resources Director Meredith Dolan was suspended without pay Wednesday morning and is unlikely to return, commissioner Robert Loughery said. Dolan has worked for two decades in the county's HR department. Her suspension came five days after the release of a grand jury report that estimated "hundreds of thousands of dollars of wasted taxpayer money" through the "very poor oversight of county health plans. " The report released last week by the Bucks County District Attorney's office estimated that more than $450,000 was wasted on ineligible health care dependents.

A special prosecutor probing allegations of leaks from a grand jury investigation of former Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples couldn't pinpoint the sources of information used by several reporters writing about the case. Albert Blakey, a former York County judge, said his investigation narrowed the "most likely" sources to three people: Dauphin County Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo and state Troopers Richard Weinstock and David Swartz, each of whom was directly involved in the grand jury investigation.

Q: What is a grand jury, how are its members selected, and how do they make their decisions? A: Prosecutors in Northampton County used a grand jury in charging a Maryland man earlier this month with the homicide of a Moore Township man that has been unsolved for more than 11 years. District Attorney John Morganelli said the decision to charge Robert Schmidt with the crime came after he was called to testify before the grand jury in Easton. Although Schmidt said he wouldn't testify, two other men testified Schmidt had confessed to killing and burying Robert Sarko, Morganelli said.

A Northampton County grand jury has finished its work after two years of investigations that garnered arrests in three cold-case murders, and leads in several others, District Attorney John Morganelli announced Wednesday. Calling the county's first grand jury in a decade a success, Morganelli said he is asking President Judge F.P. Kimberly McFadden to approve a new grand jury that will continue to investigate unsolved homicides, public corruption and other potential crimes that prosecutors bring before it. In total, the just-disbanded grand jury probed 14 cases, including nine murders dating as far back as the 1975 beating and strangling of 76-year-old Katie Kerchmar of Bethlehem, Morganelli said.

Penn State University President Rodney Erickson has been subpoenaed to testify before a state grand jury investigating child sex allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has learned. Erickson was served late last week, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers confirmed Monday. Powers said she had not seen the subpoena itself and did not know the manner in which it was served. The date of testimony is being worked out along with details of what information or records Erickson might be asked to provide.

A federal grand jury is investigating former state Sen. Robert Mellow for extortion, money laundering, fraud and related offenses, a federal appeals court says. The existence of the federal probe has been known since June 18, 2010, when FBI and IRS agents raided Mellow's home and office, but the reason surfaced in an opinion filed Wednesday by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Mellow has not been charged with a crime or cited by any agency for wrongdoing. He served 40 years in Harrisburg, in part representing Monroe County.

When 20-year-old Matthew Kelly was fatally shot in an Easton parking lot last year, he was no innocent victim, a Northampton County grand jury has concluded. Rather, Kelly "participated voluntarily" in his own demise when he and two women hatched a macabre plot to rob and possibly murder a drug dealer, according to testimony the investigative panel heard over 11 months. Suspect Brian W. Simmons, the intended robbery victim, will not face homicide charges in Kelly's death, the grand jury decided in a report made public Friday by prosecutors.

HARRISBURG — Jerry Sandusky was an icon. He built the defense that helped Penn State football win two national championships and then retired to run The Second Mile charity for underprivileged boys. This was not the type of person Tom Corbett's staff at the state attorney general's office thought they could convict quickly on the testimony of one teenager. In 2008, the boy told officials in his Clinton County high school he was the "victim of inappropriate conduct by Sandusky. " More victims were needed.

A Philadelphia School District principal and four teachers were arrested Thursday and accused of "perpetuating a culture of cheating" on state exams by state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane. Evelyn Cortez, principal of Cayuga Elementary in Hunting Park, was charged with tampering with public records, perjury, forgery, criminal conspiracy and other offenses. Her attorney, Matthew Sedacca, said Cortez was shocked by the accusations and denies the charges. Also charged were Cayuga teachers Lorraine Vicente, Jennifer Hughes, Rita Wyszynski and Ary Sloane, who is now principal of Bethune Elementary.

Bethlehem City Councilwoman Karen Dolan is stepping down from the parks committee less than a week after news that the Northampton County grand jury was tasked with looking into the nonprofit she founded to restore the city-owned Illick's Mill. "Given the ongoing grand jury investigation and the upcoming discussion of a new lease for the Fox Environmental Center, council member Dolan's role as chair of the Parks and Public Property Committee could give the appearance of a conflict of interest," council President J. William Reynolds said in a memo Wednesday.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli confirmed Thursday the new investigative grand jury will be looking into a Bethlehem nonprofit operating out of the city-owned Illick's Mill in Monocacy Park. He said he made the decision after receiving phone calls and emails from people in the community with questions about the Gertrude B. Fox Environmental Center, whose CEO, Karen Dolan, resigned last week after questions arose about the appearance of conflicts of interest. Dolan is also a city councilwoman.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli wants his next grand jury to emulate the work of their predecessors. The 2012 grand jury, which ended its work last month, investigated 30 cases including homicides and robberies, the use of charitable funds at the National Museum of Industrial History and the theft of more than $1 million from philanthropist Marlene "Linny" Fowler. Morganelli said it was the most cases put before a grand jury in his 22 years as district attorney, and likely the most since the 1960s.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane filed papers Tuesday asking a federal court to dismiss ex-Penn State President Graham Spanier's lawsuit alleging prosecutorial misconduct in the case charging him with a conspiracy to hide Jerry Sandusky's crimes. The five-page filing in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg came a day after Spanier filed the lawsuit, which alleges former Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina violated Spanier's rights during a grand jury investigation. Spanier, 65, is charged with perjury, endangering the welfare of children, obstruction of justice, failure to report child abuse, conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Bucks County Human Resources Director Meredith Dolan was suspended without pay Wednesday morning and is unlikely to return, commissioner Robert Loughery said. Dolan has worked for two decades in the county's HR department. Her suspension came five days after the release of a grand jury report that estimated "hundreds of thousands of dollars of wasted taxpayer money" through the "very poor oversight of county health plans. " The report released last week by the Bucks County District Attorney's office estimated that more than $450,000 was wasted on ineligible health care dependents.

Charges that former Penn State University President Graham Spanier conspired to hide Jerry Sandusky's crimes are the result of prosecutorial misconduct, Spanier's lawyer alleges in a lawsuit asking a federal court to dismiss the case. As the state attorney general's office worked to build a case against Sandusky in 2011, Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina failed to raise an alarm when Spanier testified before a grand jury under a mistaken belief that Penn State General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin represented him, the suit says.

As police probed allegations of online snooping by Easton Area School District's former technology director Thomas Drago last year, investigators found some officials weren't willing to talk. Now, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said he plans to impanel an investigating grand jury to examine anonymous allegations of intimidation, harassment and tampering with public records in connection with the case. "Some of the people who slammed doors on the cops will be called in before the grand jury," Morganelli said Friday.